New Documentary: Hollywood Icon Cary Grant Dropped Acid 100 Times

Famed actor credited LSD therapy with having changed his life.

Long before LSD expanded the minds of Timothy Leary and The Beatles, one Hollywood star was experimenting with the drug in therapy. Per The Guardian, Cary Grant—who might be best known to modern audiences for his turn in Alfred Hitchcock thriller North by Northwest—took part in approximately 100 acid-taking therapy sessions in Beverly Hills between 1958-61 (the Hitchcock movie came out in ’59).

The truth about Grant’s turning on, tuning in, and dropping out will be part of an upcoming Showtime documentary, entitled Becoming Cary Grant, which will screen for the first time at next week’s Cannes Film Festival.

Mark Kidel, the documentary’s director, told The Guardian:

“He claimed he was saved by LSD….You have to remember that Cary was a private man. He rarely gave interviews. And yet, after taking acid, he personally contacted Good Housekeeping magazine and said: ‘I want to tell the world about this. It has changed my life. Everyone’s got to take it.’ I’ve also heard that Timothy Leary read this interview, or was told about it, and that his own interest in acid was essentially sparked by Cary Grant.”